zombie virus, I believe everyone will not be unfamiliar with this term. Whether it is in the fantasy movie or in the doomsday-themed film and television works, this is an extremely popular factor.
And for a number of science fiction fans and doomsday lovers, this is also their favorite plot setting. After all, in their opinion, the zombie virus itself is a doomsday fantasy that exists in science fiction settings.
However, is this really the case?
The real zombie virus: prion
In fact, the zombie virus has long arrived in human society. In the 1960s, a black-tailed deer was infected with the virus in an animal research institution in Colorado, USA.
At the beginning of the infection, the deer acted a little strange, such as loss of appetite and listlessness, but the researchers did not notice the problem and thought that the black-tailed deer was just not in good spirits these days and could recover after a good rest.
But as time goes by, the black-tailed deer is in a state that goes day by day. Not only does it eat and drink very little, but it often stares in the same direction for a long time, but its eyes are very hollow, just like a walking corpse, which makes the researchers feel a little strange and then treat the deer.
However, what unexpectedly surprised the staff was that before the treatment began, the black-tailed deer's behavior became even more weird. It became slow and even made some terrifying screams.
When getting along with his companions, the black-tailed deer was also very impatient. If there was any disagreement, it would attack the other black-tailed deer in the deer's herd, which made it completely isolated by the deer.
The staff sampled the blood of the deer, but found no abnormalities. In other words, the black-tailed deer seemed to be sick at all. Research experts at the
Research Institute couldn't help but think of whether the deer had a mutation, but just as the next step of research was about to be conducted, the black-tailed deer suddenly died under multiple tortures.
The experts in charge of the research work, with a curious attitude, conducted scientific research and dissection of the body of the black-tailed deer. After a long and detailed operation, everyone found that the internal organs of the black-tailed deer were almost completely lesions, and except for malnutrition, no signs of infection were found.
But as the black-tailed deer's head was cut open, everyone present was completely stunned. The brain of the black-tailed deer had become riddled with holes, as if it had been eaten by some creature.
After the expert took out the brain for careful observation, he did not find any parasites, just as if the holes in the brain evolved themselves. The staff of the
Research Institute checked all the information, but failed to find similar symptoms, so the investigation work could only be stopped.
However, although the research work has stopped, the development of this disease has not stopped. After this incident, similar infections have erupted in deer herds in many regions of the United States.
almost all of those sick deer, like the first black-tailed deer, developed from mental depression to empty eyes, and then to mental excitement, and even attacked humans, and finally died in such excitement.
and their anatomical results are extremely similar, that is, the brain has become riddled with holes, looking decaying, similar to the biological brain that has been dead for a long time. The amazing similarity of
made people realize that this disease is contagious, but there are no signs of viral infection on the dissected deer carcasses, which makes its harm geometric increase. Countless scientists began to devote their efforts to find out the culprit behind this bizarre disease.
Under such pursuit efforts, Stanley B. Prousner, a neuropathologist from UC , discovered the source of the disease------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prion: cannibalization comes from humans, and humans are also hosts
However, it should be noted that although the name of prions contains the word "virus", from a scientific perspective, it does not belong to the virus line, but should be a strange protein.
This is mainly because the prions are very small in size and have no nucleic acid part at all. This does not meet the definition of a virus. On the contrary, judging from the growth of prions, it is more similar to proteins.
Then why call it a "virus"?
In fact, Prousner's move is entirely to make the world pay attention to the existence of this protein, because it is through this characteristic that prions can successfully parasitize in the host.
Simply put, the prions do not have nucleic acid parts, so they are not noticed by the immune system, which allows it to easily enter any organism.
At the same time, because it is similar to proteins, it can nourish itself through the host's nutrition and thus expand the population. Under normal circumstances, they will help the host function like other proteins, which is simply a spy-like existence.
However, when the prions reach a certain scale, they will rise up and no longer develop according to the host's genes, but instead use their own model to reproduce in large quantities.
However, the nutrients and cell capacity in the host are limited. The large reproduction of prions will inevitably cause the living space of normal cells to be compressed on a large scale, and eventually cause normal cells to gradually shrink until they die.
Moreover, prions are mainly accumulated in central nervous system , which means that once prions begin to break out, nervous system is the primary target of attack.
In addition to this, the terribleness of prions is that its host list also contains humans.
The first person to discover this was a medical scientist named Daniel Carlton Gadoussek . He went to the Frei tribe in 1950.
At that time, there was a terrible plague in the Frei tribe. Anyone who got sick was either mentally depressed or would scream strangely, which made people in the tribe feel very scared. In particular, the plague was named " Kuru Disease ", which was explained in tribal language, which means "fear".
In order to find out the cause of people's illness, Gaduxhek investigated the local water and food, but no viruses were found.
Until he was about to return without success, in order to thank him for his arrival, the tribe invited him to the sacrificial ceremony. He saw a tribe member who had just died of illness lying on the sacrificial platform. After praying, the sacrificial man directly dismembered him with a knife and distributed the remains to everyone for food.
As a foreign guest, Gaduxhek specially left the deceased's brain tissue to him. Although this move made Gaduxhek extremely uncomfortable, it made him understand the reason why the Freith tribe became sick, which was the same cannibalism.
After he brought the obtained brain tissue back to the laboratory, after many dissections and experiments, he discovered the infectious cause contained in it, and thus won the Nobel Prize of that year.
Similar to it is mad cow disease. This cattle disease that makes farmers scared is actually a manifestation of prions.
From this point of view, it is not difficult to find that although prions are not viruses, they have high adaptability as viruses and have a certain degree of autonomy. For example, the time of onset is chosen by it independently.
Although prions today cannot bring about resurrection, don’t forget that prions are a rapidly expanding protein and mainly grow in the central nervous system.
This means that if the prions undergo extreme mutations, they will be able to control the central nervous system to achieve the purpose of manipulating human behavior. The large number of reproductive proteins are just the condition for resuscitation of the body. By then, the resurrection of the dead may no longer be a science fiction scene.
Moreover, as mentioned above, the large-scale reproduction of prions requires nutrition. If it completes the manipulation of human thinking, then obtaining nutrition will become the primary goal of prions.
Note that prions are originally derived from cannibalism, so for it, cannibalism is naturally the best way to supplement oneself.
As a result, a terrifying problem arises, that is, the above points are exactly consistent with the characteristics of zombies. At the same time, what is even more hopeless is that according to the current medical conditions, humans cannot treat prions at all, and can only allow this virus to continue to grow and evolve.
And this may be one of the signs of the arrival of the zombies.
